@oak - I was referring to the red cable downstream of the solenoid, i.e. the one connecting the solenoid to the starter.
I actually did another test after I got my starter re-assembled (what fun it was trying to hold the brushes back so that I could insert the commutator back into place!)...
- I first bench tested the starter again to make sure it spins with 12V (yep, I understand that's not under load)
- I reinstalled it back onto the engine
- I then completely bypassed the solenoid by connecting my battery (lose on my garage floor at the moment) directly to the starter via jumper cables.
With every attempt to get the engine spinning it'd either:
- do nothing for a second, then spin maybe 1/8 rev and then stop again, or
- spin 1/8 rev, then stop
It never got into any kind of continuous spin (which it what I think should happen here, right?).
I even tried it with my battery charger - set in ~ "jump start mode" - connected to the battery, and got the same behavior.
Don't those results isolate the issue to the starter? I suppose I could repeat the test using my car battery instead of the tractor battery just to make sure it's not a battery issue.
FWIW - when I had the starter apart I was able to confirm proper connectivity, i.e.
- one set of opposite pairs of brushes went to the bottom plate (GND)
- the other set of opposite brushes went to the bolt that the cable from the solenoid goes to (12 V input).
The only thing I didn't test that I probably should've was the resistance for those pairs of brushes.
|